


Commander

by Dinadette



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV), The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Consent Issues, Corruption, Dark, Domestic Violence, Duty, F/M, Fucked Up, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Marriage, Moral Bankruptcy, No Dialogue, POV First Person, POV Male Character, Period-Typical Racism, Probable Sociopathy, Role Reversal, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Reflection, Victim Blaming, Women's Rights, barely touched, low on spoilers, no detail, power, self-justification, some much victim blaming...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dinadette/pseuds/Dinadette
Summary: Commander Fred Waterford reflects on his past and present. This is your only warning. Run. Hide.





	Commander

**Author's Note:**

> \- I live for reviews, good, bad, neutral, they always help! -

I was never that way.

 

I used to be a gentleman, I was.

 

I respected women. I was gentle, polite, I held the door for the old neighbour and I made sure consent was always explicit. If I ever grew fed up, annoyed, angry, I kept it hidden.

 

How could I resent how women behaved, when they claimed to have won it? Somehow, it seemed to allow promiscuity, putting down men and favoring behaviours that hurt society as a whole.

 

If I ever had such thoughts, I buried them deep, deep inside the heart I still had. Then. 

 

My own wife agreed with some of those things I might or might not have thought… She was sometimes upset at my lack of reaction. Stop tip toeing. Stop internalizing. Just be a man. Yet I wouldn't. I couldn't treat her that way, even when she deserved it. So it remained a concept, I won't say a fantasy, until something terrible happened to her and I got to take out this darkness on someone barely human.

 

It was easy.

 

A Commander, I was named, when Gilead was created. What was a Commander to do if not command? By then I had come to terms with the fact that, really, some humans were barely so. I had my wife's support, until I didn't anymore, but a woman -even clever - 's approval didn't mean much and I only remembered times I craved it with embarrassment. I was there to lead. I would protect her, even if it meant hurting her in the process. I did. 

 

I was a Commander. I protected a whole society. Law on my side, and even when it wasn't, it didn't matter if I unwinded on some lower ranking individual. It was worth the risk, experiencing that rush, that heady powerful feeling. Gilead needed men who would dare. I didn't even remember why I found it challenging in the beginning. Why I almost faltered the first time I raised a hand against my wife. Why I almost faltered the first time a handmaid wasn't fully convinced of her duty. I couldn't shirk my duties just because some found it difficult to do theirs. It was easy. There was pleasure to doing the right thing.

 

Maybe I always was that way.


End file.
